An Afghan asylum seeker was a child when he arrived in Britain, despite having grey hairs and authorities finding he lacked a ‘youthful glow’, a UK judge has ruled.
The Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber has overturned a decision that the migrant was an adult, saying the ‘stress’ of his journey from Afghanistan might have led him to go grey.
The court concluded the boy was 15 when he arrived in Britain, despite an age assessment carried out by East Sussex County Council initially finding he had an ‘established jawline and lack of youthful glow’.
The boy, who has been given anonymity, lodged an appeal with the asylum court after the council’s social workers determined he was 18 upon arriving to the UK.
The asylum seeker, who is from a village 90 minutes outside Jalalabad, had unsuccessfully attempted to enter the UK three times by small boat before reaching British shores on October 10, 2022, the court heard.
Shortly after arriving, he told the Home Office that he had come to the UK ‘for a better future, for better opportunities’ and to support his family financially. He said he would return to his native country after finishing his studies.
Two weeks later, he was placed with a foster carer by the council, however social workers found, after carrying out an age assessment, that ‘evidently there was some doubt as to whether he was as young as he claimed to be’.
Assessors said the boy looked older than his claimed age of 16, as he had ‘flecks’ of grey hair on the sides of his head, an established jawline and ‘lack[ed] a youthful glow’.
They also concluded that the migrant appeared to have facial hair before starting his journey to the UK in August 2021, and that he had not grown out of his clothes or shoes after trekking across several countries.
Assessors said by his own account, the migrant said he had reached his ‘adult height’ before leaving Afghanistan.
They also said his growth ‘was not in keeping with that of other 16-year-old young men they had worked with’.
They said his body was ‘fully developed’, he had ‘established facial hair and body hair’, ‘grey hairs which are in keeping with chronological aging’, and that his ‘face showed maturity’.
The council assessors also concluded that he gave ‘conflicting’ accounts of how he became aware of his age and about how he claimed he lost his Tazkira, an Afghan identity document.
They found that the Afghan asylum seeker was born in January 2004, which would have made him 18 years old when he arrived in the UK.
But at a judicial review, Upper Tribunal Judge Matthew Hoffman criticized the local authority for relying on physical appearance, adding that a teenager with grey hairs ‘is not impossible’.
Judge Hoffman said: ‘Physical appearance is a notoriously unreliable basis for determining a person’s age and this is not a case where it is asserted that the [Afghan] looks so much older than his claimed age that this can be considered to be a reliable indicator.
‘We also find that little weight can be attached to the fact… that he has some grey hairs on the side of his head.
‘It is not impossible for a teenager to have some grey hairs but it is unusual.
‘However, it does not seem to us to be much less unusual for a 19-year-old to have grey hairs than a 16-year-old.
‘That is especially the case here, where there appears to have been some acknowledgement by the assessors that this may have been the result of the stress caused to the [Afghan] on his journey to the UK and that other possible explanations include vitamin deficiency and genetics
‘We also attach little weight to the evidence that [he] was shaving before he came to the UK.
‘As the age assessment itself notes, “the presence of facial hairs was not an uncommon feature of adolescent males from his ethnicity”.
‘We also find that the [Afghan] having an ‘established jaw line and lack of youthful glow’ are unlikely to be reliable indicators of the [his] age and should be treated with caution.’
Judge Hoffman said the tribunal could work out the migrant’s age based on what his mother had told him when he was younger.
‘We find that the [Afghan] has been broadly consistent with his account that his mother told him his age when he was 14 years old so that he knew that he would need to fast during the next Ramadan when he would be 15’, the judge said.
‘We find it more likely than not that the [Afghan] is telling the truth when he claims that he was 15 years old when he arrived in the UK.
‘After careful consideration, we find it more likely than not that [he] was born during Ramadan in 2006.
‘Noting that Ramadan in 2006 took place between 23 September and 23 October that year, and as we cannot know what the exact day of his birth is, we would give [him] a date of birth at the mid-point of that period: 15 October 2006.’